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56
opinion
9 votes
May 6, 2015

Why is greed bad? Why is Selfishness bad? I would say people believe these things are destructive because they do not benefit the common good or thr good of the people. While this also may seem like the same thing the point that that common good simply means 51% or more. Others not included in the commons may not need to be helped or may disagree with what is being done.

I need to work hard on staying focused here.

Now while, large CEO's may oppose welth redistribution it may not be simply to keep the government dirty fingers out of their bank accounts. Lets look at the fundamental cause for wealth inequality. Is it due to the rich keeping it all? Well that can't be because the ammount of wealth is not nessisaraly fixed. You are not poor because somebody else is rich, if you go out and get rich, then you both are rich, the other guy doesn't nessisary become poor.

So I would say the fundamental reasoning behind the inequality is regulation. What!? Yes. Things like small buisness liscense taxes and other government related expenses on new buisness owners are an unnecessary hurdle that prevents too many from turning a profit. Even things like a doctor's liscense, a government program purposed to help improve received care end up justifying outlandish pay and expenses. Why does the guy that tests my urin sample need 8 years of schooling and make 10X what I do? Because he has a liscense… most of the simple care visits can be handled by nurses who are quite knowledgeable and competant to tell me what I need however even though the solution may be clear to them they can't help you. They need a license to do that.

Now I don't hate Doctors, im simply using them to illustrate what I mean. So lightening buisness regulation is a great way to allow lower income families to get on the road to a better life.

Adding regulation makes zero sense to me. Let's lay this out. The big corporations steers the government to make laws that cut out competition (liscensing, bailouts, manufacturing codes etc.) and somehow asking the government to wright more laws is going to help? Remember that these law makers are in the pockets of these corperations, they won't wright a law that hurts the hand that feeds them.

Clear and concise deregulation is a strong and accurate way to pull down corporate power and simultaneously improve the lower and middle class.

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80
main reply
5 votes,
May 6, 2015

While deregulation on some things may be possible and even beneficial one must consider the goal of a corporation: produce as much profit as possible. Corporations need regulation because they lack a moral compass. Paying your workers 2 dollars an hour is pretty profitable, dumping your toxic waste any old place is easy and less costly than having to deal with regulation on toxic materials and the list goes on.

The point is, a lot of regulation is necessary to keep corporations from doing amoral things that happen to be very profitable to them. Many of the greedy types want regulation reduced solely to make more profit at the expense of everyone else, not to promote competition (which reduces profit).

Smaller businesses do need different regulatory apparatus than larger corporations and that should be accounted for by not using a one size fits all regulation method.

As far as your assertion that "Well that can't be because the ammount of wealth is not nessisaraly fixed. You are not poor because somebody else is rich, if you go out and get rich, then you both are rich, the other guy doesn't nessisary become poor." the issue is not that the already wealthy are taking money from people and thus making them poor it's that the already wealthy are taking opportunity away from people so they can't escape being poor.

As an example consider wal-mart making 20 billion a year in profit after all expenses. It would cost them 7 billion to give all their employees a 2 dollar raise. The corporate imperative is to hoard all that profit as opposed to sharing it with the workforce. Many people argue that wal-mart is just fine taking in 13 billion in profits and can easily afford to improve wages. These improved wages offer opportunity to the workers to grow a savings/investment account, make more purchases, move into a better apartment, pay for college classes etc. So while wal-mart enjoys high profitability it's workers lose out on the opportunity for growth that the raises would afford them. Companies aren't necessarily making people poor, but they aren't helping them rise above poverty either.

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0
User voted No.
0 votes,
May 6, 2015

the issue is not that the already wealthy are taking money from people and thus making them poor it's that the already wealthy are taking opportunity away from people so they can't escape being poor

Please demonstrate how the rich are taking money away from the poor.

Here's a little exercise for you. You obtain a mortgage. Said mortgage will only be $500.00 a month, but the government steps in and wants you and four of you new neighbors to pitch in another hundred a month so the poor single mother Jane Doe can get a house on the same block. Now she can't afford the mortgage, but you can and the hundred more a month towards hers. So how does it harm you to pitch in and give her and her children a nice home?

Now, why would you submit to such a thing? Why should a corporation, acting within the law, go counter to common business practices? Do you, or anyone you know, avoid buying Nike's, or iPhones? Both are made by people who are very close to slave labor. These people are much worse off than the underpaid employees of WalMart.

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50
2 votes,
May 6, 2015

You quote me and still misunderstand what I said, I didn't say the rich were taking money from the poor, I said they were taking opportunity away. The already wealthy want to privatize schools, make them voucher based and unaffordable for the middle and working class. There is also my previous example of corporations hoarding large profits instead of paying workers better.

As far as horrible working conditions abroad, yes they are terrible but that doesn't mean we should turn a blind eye to the already wealthy who are hoarding profits overseas or otherwise. Why should we let corporations who could improve the standard of living both here and abroad get away with hoarding profits for the handful of CEOs and board members?

The money needs to flow to create a steady economy, when it can't flow we end up getting crashes. Capitalism is based on people being able to afford to do more than barely survive.

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User voted No.
0 votes,
May 6, 2015

You stated that they were taking money from the poor. I don't see where I misunderstood that. You go on to say the rich want to privatize schools and give vouchers. The rich can already afford whatever schools they want, Why would they want to provide vouchers to the poor if they want to hoard quality education?

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67
main reply
3 votes,
May 6, 2015

You are either completely ignorant as to the reality of the situation, or you are paid to pretend that you are. Most likely the latter, as I'm pretty sure no one would hire someone to write as badly as you do.

I shall endeavor to address your statements in the order that they are presented.

Why is greed bad? Because greed causes a person to seek to obtain more than what they need, to the point where their happiness is primarily derived from the obtaining of a thing, as opposed to the thing itself. This is unhealthy for an economy, as an economy is driven by people spending money for goods or services, and a person who exhibits greedy behavior is less likely to spend or otherwise distribute their wealth throughout the economy, preferring instead to amass wealth, which causes the majority of the money that they encounter to remain unspent, which isolates it and keeps it from contributing to the economy. So, yes, greed is destructive.

The United States is a Democratic Republic, which means that the People have power to make some decisions themselves, and also to elect persons to make some decisions for them. Your opening statement implies that because some people are not average- the implication is that you're referring to those who are obscenely wealthy- they should not be bound by the laws that are decided on by the majority of the People. However, the so-called "tyranny of the majority", while admittedly biased and unfair, is far, FAR less biased and unfair than the tyranny of the minority, which is what you are suggesting should be allowed. A democratic system of government is not meant to be perfect, wise, or even all that rational. It is meant instead to ensure that the majority of people are treated the way that they want to be treated. The other 49% may disagree with that treatment. But there are fewer of them, and their suffering under the tyranny of the majority is inherently less important, and in aggregate less severe, than the suffering of the majority under the tyranny of the minority.

While it is true that the amount of money is not fixed, the amount of capital is; there's only so much on the planet; only a certain amount of gold or copper or oil or sunlight or manpower or whatever it is that is being bought or sold or traded. So yes, there is a finite amount of wealth in the world. If you would like proof of this, just look at the wealth statistics of the past few decades in America. The percentage of billionaires in the population has increased, the percentage of lower- or working-class persons has increased drastically, and the percentage of middle-class persons in the population has decreased drastically.

Regulations are not put in place specifically cost businesses money, with a few exceptions, mainly reserved for controversial things, such as green energies or abortion clinics. Regulations, by and large, are put in place in order to ensure quality, and in the vast majority of cases, they do this very well. The FDA, the IRS... has your identity been stolen, lately? Did you find feces in your meat? No? That was not the case before regulations to prevent these were enacted. Ever read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair? If not, you should; a bit of historical perspective might do you some good.

I do agree that regulatory actions should not put the burden of cost on the recipient. That should be subsidized by the Federal or State governments. As far as I am aware, in large part, these regulatory requirements were subsidised, before large corporations started pestering and bribing lawmakers to stop subsidizing the majority and start subsidizing the wealthy minority. You may recall this as being the campaign platform of Ronald Wilson Reagan.

The process for the government to create laws is the same as the process to repeal them. Un-writing a law is just writing a law that does the opposite of what a previous law did. Clearly you should have paid better attention in Civics class.

If deregulation was a good way to decrease corporate power, then corporate interests would not be lobbying lawmakers to reduce regulations.

Do you know who the Koch brothers are? Do you know what it is that they are infamous for?

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0
User voted No.
0 votes,
May 6, 2015
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100
opinion
2 votes
May 6, 2015

Ponder this for a moment. Who is more greedy?

Person A: Has a lot of money and does as much as possible to keep it?

Person B: Has little money and does as much as possible to get it away from person A?

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100
opinion
2 votes
May 6, 2015

I feel like this is a biased and unfair question. Do I feel the 1% are greedy? Yes. Do I feel the 99% are greedy as well? Yes. While there are some rockstar human beings who do not have greed as part of their persona, I feel like greed is an innate human trait. It's part of being human.

Are the 1% greedy? Sure. Just like everyone else. Human beings are greedy by nature.

Are the 1% more greedy than the average human? Well, no, I don't think so. We're all just human. Most of the 1% simply had more opportunities than others. The difference between that businessman who makes 500K a year and that witty garbage man who makes 50K a year was, mostly, opportunity with a little bit of "good" choices thrown in.

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100
User voted No.
opinion
2 votes
May 6, 2015

No, you can't say the richest 1% of Americans are greedy, you can say they have more money to invest and spend less than they make so they gather more wealth. And many of the thing they discussed in the link I don't agree with and I'm not in the top 1%. I don't agree with the support increasing the minimum wage, does that make me greedy?

No, it means I don't agree that politics of minimum wage, as I feel that minimum wage tends to be the maximum wage for certain jobs. It doesn't make me greedy, it means I think the market should decide the wage. If you want to make more then upgrade your skill or become more valuable to your employer or start your own business.

While some people rich or not are greedy, you can't say that x groups is greedy just because they have wealth.

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100
opinion
2 votes
May 6, 2015

This poll is more or less pointless because the concept of "greed" is so subjective.

Does greed mean wanting things above and beyond what it requires to sustain yourself? Because by that definition, every organism on the planet is greedy - and thus a poll such as this only serves to perpetuate class warfare.

Does greed mean wanting to keep the things you've earned? People do not take their millions with them after they die. Either the money is given to the state or to people you deem worthy of the fruits of your labor so 99.99% of the time no one keeps what they've earned.

Does greed mean doing immoral things to obtain profit? By that definition, some rich people are greedy, and some aren't. Some people got rich because of a great idea or because they worked hard to build up skills which made them money (Mark Zuckerberg for example). Some people got rich because they manufactured weapons which were sold to the US government in order to kill people overseas. Some people got rich because they gambled with big banks' capital knowing all the while that the taxpayers would bail them out and they'd make a fortune for taking obscene risks with their money.

So I will not answer this poll - it is such a loaded question that it's not really worth answering in a simple Yes or No fashion.

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100
opinion
1 vote
May 6, 2015

No what I do believe is those in the federal, state, and local government, are very power hungry and are finding new ways to separate everyone from there money

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100
opinion
1 vote
May 6, 2015

The reality for me is that I have more than I need, does that make me greedy?

I am not rich by my community standards, but I eat more food than my body needs because I can, does that make me greedy?

At what point does my having extra make me greedy? Is a banker who makes millions but gives little to charity greedy? What about Bill Gates who gives away more millions every year than most millionaires make in a year. Is he greedy?

The bible says that Greed is one of the seven deadly sins, yet most millionaires in the US would probably define themselves as Christian.

There are a lot of nuances to greed. I don't think the question is valid.

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100
opinion
1 vote
May 6, 2015
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